The present invention relates to advertising over a communications network comprising a plurality of interactive client subscriber sites interconnected with an advertising information server site.
It has already been proposed in our co-pending European patent application No (98306734.9) to provide a computer network such as the Internet to provide advertisements for products and services. The Internet commonly uses a client-server based information service presentation system known as the “World Wide Web” (WWW) also referred to as The Web. In The Web, a server station or “site” may provide a series of screens or “pages” of information which a client or customer can access in sequence by sending appropriate request signals over the Internet. The Web has a standard protocol for information transfers known as the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and request signals from a client and data signals from a server are in a format known as HyperText Mark-up Language(HTML).
In our above-mentioned co-pending patent application it has been proposed to present advertising information in the form of an interactive display of a role model or virtual idol portrayed in a role as a consumer of goods and services. The role model or virtual idol has affinity characteristics chosen to build up a character profile that combines the most predominant consumer affinity characteristics of a target subscriber group. In addition to a central character profile, further connected character profiles and an environment profile are built up. The aim of building up the character and environment profiles in this way is to ensure that the central character and environment match closely the lifestyle aspirations of the target consumer segment.
Whilst the invention described in our previous co-pending patent application is an effective way of presenting advertising information, the primary benefit of using a role model or virtual idol is that it creates an affinity with a particular consumer segment. However, there is still a need to optimize the affinity of characters to the consumers to which the advertising information is directed.